Snail tale is far from ‘Turbo’-charged

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SPEED RACER: A snail who has dreams of racing in the Indy 500 is transformed into a speed demon in the DreamWorks Animation flick ‘Turbo.’

What was in the water when the folks at DreamWorks Animation decided to make a 3-D digital feature about a snail who wants to race in the Indy 500?

“Turbo,” directed by David Soren from his story idea, is certainly handsome, soundly professional and entirely predictable in its David vs. Goliath story of a little mollusk who won’t give up on his impossible dream.

But doesn’t there have to be something more, like an intriguing premise? Something more than a “We can do this” mantra when you make a feature?

If fairy tales are played out and we’ve covered cartoon features about ambitious ants, boring talking cars and an enchanting culinary mouse, the basic premise still has to be attractive or interesting enough to entice and entertain.

“Despicable Me 2,” “The Croods,” “Monsters University” and “Epic” all scored not just with imaginative art but catchy, imaginative stories.

In contrast “Turbo” just seems ridiculous.

That said, the voice work is as first-rate as the animation.

Ryan Reynolds is Theo (aka Turbo), a snail who dreams of racing in the Indy 500 and who, thanks to being ingested into a turbo engine and being hit with nitrous oxide, becomes the fastest snail ever seen, capable of running around the race car track at 226 mph.

The first half hour of “Turbo” is virtually a monologue as our would-be hero talks and talks, counseled only by his older, presumably wiser brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) in a tomato garden where crows daily dine on one snail.

Once he’s transformed into a racing machine, Turbo is taken in by taco seller Chico (Michael Pena) who also has a brother, Angelo (Luis Guzman), who doesn’t believe in his get-rich schemes.

But Chico, along with some idiosyncratic racing snails led by Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), prevails to let Turbo battle Indy 500 French champ Guy Gagne (Bill Hader), who might as well be called Snidely Whiplash.

“Turbo” also is blithely stereotypical — or is this just subtly racist ­— with its depiction of Hispanics and Frenchmen.

(“Turbo” is overly familiar in its story arc but dazzling enough to entertain any 5-year-old.)